Games of Impact - 1977

Games of Impact takes a look at the most important games in the industry’s history, with a max limit of 20 per year.

NOTE - This is a re-release of my Strachey’s List series, just renamed and reformatted. I’ve made small changes to reflect more accurate information.

Bazooka

1977 - Taito / Project Support Engineering

Bazooka has you target tanks and enemies with a replica bazooka, making it what we know today as a light-gun game. Players also had to be careful not to hit medical personnel and vehicles. Despite the lack of documents and information, Bazooka was a pretty popular game at the time. It showed the American public was open to exploring militaristic video games as Vietnam drew to a close.

Boot Hill

May 1977 - Taito / Midway

This is the sequel to the 1975 mega hit Gun Fight / Western Gun. It’s essentially the same game with some new additions such as barriers and more on-screen sprites happenings such as wagon passing by. It went on to become one of the highest grossing arcade games of its time. This was the first successful true sequel to a video game, rather than a clone or variation of its predecessor.

Circus

December 1977 - Exidy

Key People: Edward Valeau, Howell Ivy

Circus plays similar to the previous year’s Breakout. The goal is to get your character, a clown, to be able to hit balloons and make them disappear. It build on the success of Breakout and became a hit in the arcades. It also showed that in an industry filled with copycat clones, you could be inspired by a game and put your own spin or new paint on it, without having to shamelessly copy everything.

Combat

September 1977 - Atari

Key People: Ron Milner, Steve Mayner, Joe Decuir, Larry Wagner

This polarizing game had a whopping 27 different ways to play, all based around military vehicles and combat. It was targeted to be a popular game for the recently released Atari VCS console. The problem is most of the “games” included are just slightly different variations of others included in the cartridge. The game initially got mixed and at times negative reception. However, as time as passed by, it’s now seen as an important part of the Atari console and 1970s video games. It also showed that a public beginning to heal from the wounds of Vietnam, were open to military based video games.

Nintendo Color TV Game-6 Console

June 1977 - Nintendo

Key People: Hiroshi Yamauchi

A small Japanese toy and card company created a Pong clone style home console with different variations and a focus on providing color to your gaming experience. That company is now arguably the most well-known video game company in the world - Nintendo. While not nearly as consequential as the NES, the Nintendo TV-Game 6 home console is the very beginning of a legendary icon making its presence known in the industry it would come to revolutionize.

Scratch

1977 - Universal

I’m going to level with you guys, I found practically no information on this game. So why am I including it? Well, it was a mega hit in Japan, where it seems it was only playable. It’s one of the first golf video games and I felt the success of the game and the importance of being another sports video game first, it deserved to get honors. It’s a shame such little information is out regarding it.

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